MOMA’s John Elderfield and Willem de Kooning

Posted on May 30, 2012 | Share:

By Victoria Eastburn, Director of Education & Programs at the Clyfford Still Museum

Artist Willem de Kooning was one of the most influential Abstract Expressionist artists and remains one of the most highly regarded artists of the twentieth century. On June 7, the Clyfford Still Museum welcomes John Elderfield, chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the curator of MoMA’s major 2011 exhibition de Kooning: A Retrospective, to Denver to speak about de Kooning’s life’s work in a public lecture at 6:30 p.m.

With over 200 paintings, prints, sculptures, and drawings, de Kooning: A Retrospective, was the first comprehensive view of the artist’s work in 30 years. Elderfield will explore the key questions of stylistic development, change, and continuity in the artist’s work posed by the exhibition.

Elderfield has directed numerous other exhibitions at MoMA, ranging from Kurt Schwitters (1985), to the celebrated Henri Matisse: A Retrospective (1992), and more recently, Manet and the Execution of Maximilian (2006) and Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-17 (2010).

In 2005, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the Year, and was made Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, in 2006. He is the author of dozens of books and catalogues and numerous essays on subjects ranging from eighteenth-century drawing to the work of Bob Dylan. Elderfield lives in New York City.

Join us as we dig deeper into the era of Abstract Expressionism through a closer look at one of Still’s most famous contemporaries, Willem de Kooning. Tickets are limited. Purchase yours today!